I thought that RN stood for “Real Nurse!

So Ashley wins the blog title for today. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory. I will take some time later to share some of the “honorable mention” quotes later.

So today we are home. We had a long, long travel day yesterday and after nearly of 14 hours of travel we landed in Dayton. We had a fairly long check in process in Port au Prince, but without any issue we made it. We landed early in Newark…which was a great thing because our connection time was going to be very short. We hustled to customs/immigration a little worried about the time. There have been many times that the line to get back into the States has been close to 2 hours long. And we had about that much time to make the connection. We arrived in that area to see that it was empty! Lots of prayers were answered. We blew through that, took that train to a different terminal, and went through security all with time to spare. When we arrived at the gate we were told that the flight was delayed. God answered our prayers that we would make it. We didn’t ask that it would be late. But we are grateful! Our flight that was to leave for Dayton was originally scheduled to leave at 8:29PM…we took off after 10PM. We arrived in Dayton around 11:30PM and were greeted by A LOT of loving friends and family. It was a beautiful sight!

So back to Haiti. There are a few days to make up. Soooo here goes.

TUESDAY

Monday after debrief I was going over the message I was preaching on Tuesday evening and the Lord moved me to do something else. I’ll get there in a few paragraphs.

The group left Tuesday morning at 7:30AM. Having one day under the belt, things moved a little smoother. We had just under 200 kids on day one and more and more kids came each day. There were kids not registered trying to sneak in. We weren’t trying to keep anyone away, but we had to have an order to what we were doing. I would venture to say that each day for the rest of the week we had well over 200 kids. The 5-6 yrs old group had about 70 kids. It was crazy…but awesome!

In the afternoon, we held the purity study with a group of students and the remaining part of our team went out on a prayer walk and others spent time hanging out and playing with village kids. Our time with the students in the purity team was really good. We were a few short during this time. Many of the teens were off taking a government test on Tuesday and Wednesday. But the time was great.

Around 5PM the sound system arrived for our evening worship service. Stephen had some guys in the area build a stage off the front of the clinic. That was a huge blessing. The stage overlooked the field that the recreation team was using. When the sound was ready to go we began blasting some Christian rap music. Music is huge in this community. And we found out that the large majority of the population loves rap. It may not be everyone’s style, but we were there for them. And if they liked it, we played it! One of the things that Stephen had mentioned is that these people like the “bad” kind of rap. In the last several years the Lord has used some great men of God to create some great music. The lyrics are Biblically centered and the music has a great beat. The music drew the people in.

Once the people came we were ready to go. There were about 300-400 people in the area. Some sat right in front. Others toward the sides and back. And then there were others who stayed out in the street and near their homes. A friend of Stephen’s named Maestro led a few songs as we kicked off. After he led, I went up to preach. This would be the first time that I have preached using an interpreter. As I said earlier, the Lord moved me to change the direction I was going to go. He led me to preach on the woman at the well. There is one well in this village. And I believe that people in this community could relate to what took place there, especially the woman. Woman are not looked at in a great way in this area. And I pray God used that story and the message to press on hearts that night.

We wrapped up the evening and loaded up on the bus. We headed to the hotel and had dinner. We ended with a share time of the day. It was awesome to hear how God was moving and using our students during the day.

I will add Wednesday through Friday soon!
 
Dale